Your letters: Janet Clement

On seniors’ backs

How is it that I had less income in 2014 than in the previous year and wound up paying almost nine times the state income tax? As a senior citizen living mainly on Social Security, in 2014 my adjusted gross income was about 70 percent of my 2013 income. My federal taxes changed very little from 2013 to 2014, but the increase in state income tax I owe is mind-boggling.

The reason, of course, is that the Republicans in our General Assembly decided to balance their state budget on the backs of seniors and others who, like me, have considerable medical expenses. For me - and, I understand, for thousands of other North Carolinians - the difference between 2013 and 2014 taxes was the legislature's elimination of the medical expense deduction for individual taxpayers.

To what special interests did the General Assembly provide tax breaks in 2014 that required doing away with the medical deductions for so many low-income North Carolinians? And just whose side are our GOP legislators on? They're definitely not on mine. Please support restoration of the medical expense deduction.